A MODERN HERO.

 

By Marion HARLAND.

 

T was a very humble house.
Only a flat of three rooms
on the third floor of a tall
tenement-house in a back
street near the river. A
bedroom, a tiny parlor
and a kitchen, which was
also an eating-room, made
up the suite. The Briggses

lid all their daylight living in the last-named apart-

nent. The floor was painted yellow; the walls

vere whitewashed ;_ the furniture was homely, sub-
stantial and well-kept.

Everything was shining .clean, and both win-
lows were full of plants, many of them in flower.
Mrs. Briggs was fully persuaded in her own mind
hat no other woman in the city had such a tale of
laily mercies as herself. Among them were the
southern exposure of those windows and the circum-
itance that a gap in the buildings back of them let
n the sunshine freely. Her nasturtiums blossomed
here all winter; from a pot she had suspended by
itrings from the top of the casing, sweet alysseum
lowed downward like a fountain of soft green
waters tipped with white ; scarlet geraniums shot
ip rank shoots that had to be pruned into rea-
sonableness, and” as to Christmas roses — “ But
here!” the worthy soul would assure her ac-
yuaintances, “ they do beat everything !’’

 

This winter the calla was about to bloom. A

cind lady had given the bulb to Mrs. Briggs’s son
— Top, Junior —last year, and there was no telling
the store he set by it.

Topliffe Briggs — alias, Top, Senior — was an
¢ngineer on the great North, East, West and South
Railway. He sat at the tea-table with his wife
ind son at five-thirty one cloudy February after-
loon, His next train went out at six-forty-five.
Je had run “Her” into the station at four, and
s house was but two blocks away. Mrs. Briggs
ould see from those unparalleled kitchen-windows
he bridge by which the track crossed the river
separating the town from the marshes, ‘and could

  

calculate to a minute when the familiar step would
be heard on the stairs.

“You see we live by railroad time,” was her
modest boast. “ And my husband always comes.
straight home.” She did not emphasize the “ my,”
knowing in her compassionate heart what other
husbands were prone to lag by the way until they
came home late and crookedly.

Top, Senior, was on time to-day. “I ken trust
Her with Bartlett, you see,” he remarked to his
wife. “He won’t leave tel she’s all trig an’ tidy
for the next trip. I wisht I could be as sure o”
Stokes!” ,

Mrs. Briggs looked up inquiringly.

‘Stokes is a clever fellow,” pursued Top Senior
regretfully, slicing vigorously into the cold corned.
beef, for he was hungry. ‘Smart as a steel trap,
and onderstan’s his business. I never see a fire
man what hed a better chance o’ risin’ to an in
gineer. He knows Her pretty nigh’s well ez I do
I’ve took real comfort in learning him all I could
But I’m afeerd, sometimes, he’s on a down-grad
and the brakes don’t work.”

“ You mean that he drinks, don’t you, father ?’
asked the sharp-eyed boy at his elbow.

“* There, father!” interjected the mother. “ You
might ’a’ known he’d onderstan’, no matter how
you put it!”

“T ain’t afeered o’ my boy blabbin The
brawny hand stroked the thin light hair of his only
child. “ An’ I want he should learn to hate tha
stuff. It’s the devil’s best drivin’ wheel — liquor is.
I’d ruther lay you with my own han’s ’cross the
rails this very night, an’ drive Her right over you,
than to know that you’d grow up a drunkard,
Never do you forget them words what your father’s
-a-sayin’ to you, now, Junior! I mean every one o’
them !”

The boy started at the earnestness of the ex-
hortation, winked hard to keep his eyes dry, and
changed the subject. ‘ Hev you noticed my lily
to-day, mother? I guess it’ll be wide open by the-
time you get in to-night, father.”

yy

iT